Ācariya Dhammapāla points out:
Taking up the last quotation, the commentary to the Visuddhimagga (Paramatthamañjūsā), written by ācariya Dhammapāla (6th century) says:
"By these words the Master proclaimed the actual existence of Nibbāna in the ultimate sense.* But he did not proclaim it as a mere injunction of his [i.e., as a creedal dogma], saying “I am the Lord and Master of the Dhamma”; but, in his compassion for those to whom intellectual understanding is the highest that is attainable, he also stated it as a reasoned conclusion in the continuation of the passage quoted above (Udāna 73): “If, bhikkhus, there were not the unborn, etc., an escape from what is born, etc., could not be perceived. But because, bhikkhus, there is an unborn, etc., an escape from what is born, etc., can be perceived.”
This is the meaning: if the unformed element (Nibbāna), having the nature of being unborn, etc., did not exist, no escape from the formed or conditioned, i.e., the five aggregates, could be perceived in this world; their final coming-to-rest (i.e., cessation) could not be perceived, could not be found or apprehended, would not be possible…"
Wh 011 — Anatta & Nibbana
Do you think the argument is casuistical? If so, why?
Renaldo
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I don’t really see any other way to view it. And the argument is sound. The argument also implies the necessity of knowing conditioned realities as they arise.
But it is non-existence and cessation of all conscious experience, of which nothingness (a subtly perceived form of existence where every “thing” is not perceived) is a part of, though it exists as an element by normal renditions.
There is, bhikkhus, that base where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no air; no base consisting of the infinity of space, no base consisting of the infinity of consciousness, no base consisting of nothingness, no base consisting of neither-perception-nor-non-perception; neither this world nor another world nor both; neither sun nor moon. Here, bhikkhus, I say there is no coming, no going, no staying, no deceasing, no uprising. Not fixed, not movable, it has no support. Just this is the end of suffering. - Nibbana Sutta Ud. 8.1
It’s basically nothingness from another point of view as the cessation of all existence. But I think the aversion to this is based on a misreading of nothingness based in conventional understanding.
From a Dhammic standpoint it would make sense to see this nothingness as a good thing because of the stress, expectation and limitation experienced in all conditioned phenomena like those listed in the Sutta in any way it can be experienced. From a conventional one not so much, but that’s probably why it’s best to break that view apart first.